MIT to set up Asian supply chain institute via partnership with Higher Education Ministry & UiTM [ 25-03-2011 ]
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a world-famous university, has teamed up with the Ministry of Higher Education and Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) to set up the Malaysian Institute for Supply Chain Innovation (Misi) in Shah Alam, Selangor.
The move will pave the way for Malaysia to become a centre of advanced learning for logistics and supply chain management in Asia.
The three parties sealed the pact yesterday, witnessed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who hailed the joint initiative, which is in line with Malaysia's aim of enhancing higher education and emerging as a regional education hub.
With the setting up of Misi, Datuk Seri Najib is confident that the research and development in the logistics and supply chain industry will boost growth in other industries to the benefit of the country.
The centre, which will focus on postgraduate supply chain education and research, will be MIT's hub in Asia linking its worldwide network of centres, known as the Global SCALE (Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence) Network.
The other centres are the MIT Centre for Transportation and Logistics (MIT CTL), the Zaragoza Logistics Centre in Spain and the Centre for Latin American Logistics Innovation in Colombia.
MIT CTL Director, Yossi Sheffi said that Misi could be the last but one centre in the network with the final centre to be set up in Africa, enabling MIT to cover all continents.
In welcoming the partnership, the Minister of Higher Education, Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, said it was very encouraging that MIT picked Malaysia to host its third overseas hub, particularly when both China and Singapore had indicated interest to host the centre.
In explaining the rationale of selecting UiTM, one of the public universities in the country, to tie up with MIT, he said the local university had a long track record of conducting transport and logistics programmes up to postgraduate level.
